criterionforum.org

Antoine Doinel wrote:The film may not be done in time for a 2008 release.

The film has officially been pushed back to 2009.

Anyway, apparently there was a preview screening in NYC and a few reviews have appeared. Fan boy or not, here's one of them.

Either this review or the other mentions that it is apparently very faithful to the book, excepting that the character of the Wife is slightly fleshed out and

Spoiler

you don't see the BBQ baby.

There are slight spoilers in the review.

BTW, if you haven't read the book, I can personally recommend it. Yeah, it has faults, but is so beautifully descriptive and yet so sparse in its structure. I loved it.

A sneak peek at Nick Cave's score. It starts around the 3:30 mark.

A massive gallery of concept art.

Esquire's seen it.

Actually a friend of mine saw it as well in unfinished form a couple months back and told me that what he was most surprised by was how little it had moved him and he had been a great fan of the book. According to him anyway most all the actual events of the text are represented, they just lack impact. We'll see.

Horribly misleading and often amusing trailer is up.

Awful trailer. Had no idea the Weintsteins were releasing this through their "Dimension" label, usually reserved for generic genre films.

The action spectacle of the year.

Ideal audience response is, what, "I can't wait to see him explode that house" ?

What happened here? Did the studio fire John Hillcoat and replace him with Michael Bay?

I doubt Hillcoat had anything to do with the trailer.

You guys will find the answer to all of your trailer questions in the Esquire article posted earlier

reno dakota wrote:What happened here? Did the studio fire John Hillcoat and replace him with Michael Bay?

There's a difference?

domino harvey wrote:You guys will find the answer to all of your trailer questions in the Esquire article posted earlier

Thanks for pointing that out. Reading the article has me more pumped for the movie than the trailer did. I'm just hoping this gets some decent distribution, instead of the botch job they did with Killshot. Whether it deserved it or not, a handful of theaters in Arizona is pretty pathetic.

Good grief, that Esquire piece is terribly (over)written. And factually inaccurate (Hillcoat was directing movies long before The Proposition). And what's with the gratuitous potshot at 42nd Street?!

Even taking into account that this pic was never going to be an easy sell, I still say shame on the Weinsteins for not even trying and doing the film such a disservice: this embarrassment of a trailer just reeks of desperation on their part to at least get some decent BO numbers for the opening weekend. You don't even have to have seen the film to know that this shit isn't anywhere close to representing the style, tone and intent of the film accurately. Whether the film as a whole is any good, we'll know soon, but even if it turns out as an honourable/intriguing failure, surely it's got to be better than this cretinous trailer. If only directors (those who care anyhow) had a greater say in how their work is marketed... certainly some would have the clout to get involved or am I off-base here? Thoughts?

Kubrick had an iron fist for Clockworks marketing and Del Toro cuts his own trailers usually.

It is very rare for directors to have control of every aspect of the marketing of their film. Additionally, this is not the first or last time a studio will misrepresent a film in a trailer to ensure they have a decent opening weekend.

knives wrote:Kubrick had an iron fist for Clockworks marketing and Del Toro cuts his own trailers usually.

Paul Thomas Anderson often does as well.

And of course, Godard, though he doesn't really exist in the same commercial sphere as the other guys listed.

Variety doesn't like it.

Antoine Doinel wrote:Variety doesn't like it.

Such a shame, but if I had my druthers, I would have liked a filmmaker like Andrew Dominik at the helm. One thing The Road did not call for was an action/suspense film, but the trailers (which I realize might be misleading) give me the impression that it's an attempt to make money instead of an attempt to make a good film. If the chemistry is as bad as McCarthy describes, then the film will be a total bust for me. The relationship and chemistry of the man and boy, through Cormac McCarthy's delicious pen, was heartbreaking and beautiful. If the film indeed falls way short of rendering that, then it will be a massive disappointment. I think this was always going to be a long shot and I can't say I had my hopes up.

P.S. - Fortunately, we get to see what Dominik can do with a McCarthy novel when Cities of the Plain comes out.

Todd McCarthy not liking it only furthers my hopes that this is going to be really good.

Antoine Doinel wrote:Variety doesn't like it.

Guardian does

ScreenDaily loves it

My problem with the Variety review is that, with Todd McCarthy's constant Cormac and "The Road" name-dropping, he simply comes across as a huge fan of the novel who had problems with the veracity/clarity of the adaptation - and wrote off the entire film as a result. I'll wait and see how many other negative reviews it got before writing off its BO & award chances...

Fascinating. Typically, I consider Todd McCarthy a pretty softball critic.

*crosses fingers*

I read The Road in a day and although I was mesmerised by the story it was the bleakest, most grimly unpleasant thing imaginable. If the event in the book which reduced the US to charcoal actually happend, then no doubt those left alive (when not eating parts of people they'd kept in a living larder) would envy the dead. Don't think people would carry on liking me if I recommended they read it.

I can imagine the PR guys being told they were getting a gritty SF epic by an award-winning author and finding they were being asked to sell a terminal disease to the American public, even the literati might flinch at dressing up to see that one.